The New World Economy: A Beginner's Guide

by Randy Charles Epping

Overview

What is blockchain? What is Bitcoin? How can central banks be instrumental in guiding a nation's economy? What are the underlying causes of trade deficits? Do trade wars actually help the domestic economy? How has the behavior of millennials and Generation Z affected the global economy? Find out all this and more in this definitive guide to the world economy.

As the global economic landscape shifts at an increasing rate, it's more important than ever that citizens understand the building blocks of the new world economy. In this lively guide, Randy Charles Epping cuts through the jargon to explain the fundamentals. In thirty-six engaging chapters, Epping lays bare everything from NGOs and nonprofits to AI and data mining. With a comprehensive glossary and absolutely no graphs, The New World Economy: A Beginner's Guide is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in the world around them. This timely book is a vital resource for today's chaotic world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525563204
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	683,798
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)

About the Author

Randy Charles Epping, based in Zurich, Switzerland and São Paulo, Brazil, has worked in international finance for over 25 years, holding management positions in European and American investment banks in London, Geneva, and Zurich. He has a master's degree in international relations from Yale University, in addition to degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Paris-La Sorbonne. He is currently the manager of IFS Project Management AG, a Switzerland-based international consulting company. He is also the president of the Central Europe Foundation, which provides assistance to students and economic organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to several other books on the world economy, he has written a novel, Trust, a financial thriller based in Zurich and Budapest. Mr. Epping holds dual U.S. and Swiss citizenship and is fluent in six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Table of Contents

Preface xv

1 Butterflies over Beijing: What Is the New "Fusion Economy"? 3

2 Bitcoins and Blockchains: Are Cryptocurrencies Real Money? 8

3 How Do Local Economic Crises Become Global Crises? 14

4 Supranationals: Do International Organizations Like the World Bank and the IMF Really Promote Economic Growth? 20

5 How Do We Rank Countries in the New Global Economy? 26

6 Can Trade Wars Destroy the World Economy? 35

7 Brexit and Border Walls: Does Economic Isolation Make Economic Sense? 42

8 Does Immigration Take Our Jobs Away? 47

9 How Do Populist Leaders Use Our Economic Illiteracy to Gain Power? 52

10 Globalization-Problem or Solution? 57

11 Inflation vs. Deflation 64

12 What Is Currency Manipulation? 70

13 The Fear of Investing: Is It Keeping Us Poor? 76

14 Comparing Investments in the New World Economy 86

15 Income Inequality: Is It Inevitable? 93

16 What Is Hot Money? 102

17 Barbarians at the Gate? Private Equity Investors, Venture Capitalists, and High-Frequency Traders 107

18 The Twenty-First-Century Company 113

19 How Is the Digital Economy Transforming the World? 119

20 What Is the Internet of Things? 126

21 Is Data the New Gold? 130

22 How Are Robots and Artificial Intelligence Transforming the World Economy? 136

23 What Is the Sharing Economy? 143

24 BRICS and Beyond: How Emerging Markets Are Becoming the New Powerhouses of the World Economy 148

25 What Is the Future for the European Union and the Other Free-Trade Areas? 153

26 Sharp Power: How Countries Use Economic Power to Achieve Global Clout 160

27 Sharing the Wealth: How Do Charities, Private Enterprise, and NGOs Promote Economic Development? 165

28 Corruption and Tax Evasion: How Does Money Laundering Work? 171

29 The Dark Web and Other Black Markets: How Big Is the Illegal Economy? 179

30 How Is Climate Change Transforming the Global Economy? 184

31 Economics vs. the Environment: Is It a Zero-Sum Game? 190

32 What Are the Alternatives to Capitalism? 196

33 Are Trade Unions Becoming Obsolete in the Twenty-First Century? 202

34 Health Care: Ways That Work 207

35 How Is the Behavior of Millennials and Other Generations Changing the World's Economic Landscape? 215

36 New Ways of Working and Living in the Twenty-First Century 223

Glossary 231

Editorial Reviews

12/16/2019

International financial consultant Epping (A Beginner’s Guide to the World Economy) explains modern economic concepts and terminology including Bitcoin, tech “unicorns,” “the internet of things,” and “crony capitalism,” in this straightforward, neoliberalism-infused guide. Arranging his text around questions that economics novices might have, Epping returns frequently to the tenets of supply and demand and comparative advantage, encouraging readers to pay down credit card debt and learn how to invest in stocks and bonds. He criticizes border walls and other trade barriers as being based on fear rather than sound economic principles, contending that the gig economy is a “viable work alternative” for people “not looking for job security per se.” Epping credits millennials and Generation Z for “opting to use their money to make the world a better place,” yet he cautions that “political correctness” and “buying locally” can have unintended and counterintuitive consequences, such as overlooking the benefits of “increased economic cooperation” between countries and the higher carbon footprint of, for instance, tomatoes grown in Dutch greenhouses compared to those shipped to the Netherlands from Spain. Epping explains economic concepts clearly and succinctly, yet his free market enthusiasm seems to discount the pain caused by the Great Recession, and he doesn’t fully explain how capitalism and climate change policy can coexist. Readers should consider this a useful starting point rather than a definitive guide. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2019-09-24
Thoroughgoing survey of the globalized, interleaved economy and its discontents.

If there is a single takeaway from management consultant Epping's (A Beginner's Guide to the World Economy, 2001, etc.) book, it's that chaos is king and control nearly impossible, whether of a command economy or of world trade. "Success in the new fusion economy," he writes, "may depend in large measure on learning that we can't control everything." Just so, there are many variables in determining whether an economy is performing well or poorly and no single gauge of success or failure; trying to impose that control on it may produce inflation on the one hand or recession on the other—or, for that matter, the mix of both known as stagflation, "a worst-case scenario." The author takes a somewhat contrarian view on certain matters: While he notes the shortcomings and costs of cryptocurrency, among them the fact that "bitcoin mining" annually uses as much energy as the entire nation of Ireland, he also opines that "the current system isn't necessarily better than an alternative system using cryptocurrencies." Epping looks at the facts of global trade and, without naming names too pointedly, exposes the folly of trade wars, tariffs, and other hallmarks of economic nationalism: "Politicians who speak of ‘winning' or ‘losing' in trade don't understand that all trade in goods and services is balanced by monetary transfers moving in the opposite direction." In the global sphere, it's more sensible to blame governments that "allow most of the new wealth to flow into the coffers of the rich" than to blame globalized trade for our woes. Among the other topics that Epping discusses are the externality of pollution, hitherto seldom factored into the cost of doing business but now increasingly important to reckon with, and the economic behavior of different generations, from the acquisitive and consumptive baby boomers to the comparatively frugal (necessarily, as it happens) millennials.

A welcome user's manual for anyone invested in the market or otherwise engaged in the financial sphere.

Kirkus Reviews